Centennial Kelp Forest Persistence on Vancouver Island from 1858 to 2023

Nearly 170 years of evidence, including British Admiralty charts (1858–1956) and Sentinel-2 satellite imagery (2020–2023), map the distribution and persistence of bull kelp and giant kelp forests across 5,600 km of the West Coast of Vancouver Island, Canada. The dataset, authored by Alena Wachmann and last updated in March 2026, partitions the coast into four ecoregions to analyze changes in canopy area. It shows high persistence (~88%) in cooler, high-energy regions containing 97.5% of modern canopy area, contrasting with lower persistence (52%) in a warmer, sheltered ecoregion.

Use Cases

• Identify climate refugia for kelp forests based on centennial persistence data across ecoregions.
• Model the relationship between sea surface temperature and kelp forest persistence using the described temperature associations.
• Support marine spatial planning for First Nations and British Columbia conservation strategies using the geospatial persistence maps.
• Establish century-scale ecological baselines to distinguish natural variability from climate-driven change.

Strengths

• Integrates nearly 170 years of historical and modern data from 1858 to 2023.
• Covers a 5,600 km coastline partitioned into four distinct ecoregions for regional analysis.
• Quantifies modern kelp canopy area and provides specific persistence percentages (e.g., ~88% and 52%) for comparison.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment for some analytical methods.
• The primary data file is a DOCX document (2.7 MB), which may require extraction or conversion of underlying data.

Provenance

Source

Alena Wachmann via figshare

Collection Method

Integration of British Admiralty charts and 10-meter resolution Sentinel-2 satellite imagery.

Time Range

1858 to 2023

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-19 05:18:05

Geography

West Coast of Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada